Bread-head boat race chilled by Peter principle

Let us trip lightly through the potholes of my past and survey the tattered souvenirs on the mantelpiece of my life. Ha ha, I am joking of course. It is just that I am terribly fond of silly hippy metaphors like "the mantelpiece of my life," which I rather fancied had disappeared with paisley shirts, gatefold sleeves and my youth.

The late, cherished Viv Stanshall's wicked satire, Canyons of Your Mind, seemed to have pronounced the last withering word on the era; but lo, the "mantelpiece of life" has returned. So who, in broadcast sport, do you think you might find dusting down the knick-knacks on the mantelpiece of somebody's life? Step forward Peter Drury - who else? - ITV's Boat Race man, who enthused, as Cambridge eased to their expected victory: "What a wonderful sight this must be for Cambridge's ebullient coach, Duncan Holland, whose debut dreams were dashed in the waves and weather of 2006, but who in 2007 can choose mentally to frame this image and stick it on the mantelpiece of his life."

Ah, why don't you skin one up, Peter, and bang on the latest groovy LP by the Incredible String Band. There are those who find Peter's commentary a little too Rococo for football, but for the Boat Race ITV seems to have stumbled across the right man. Drury is not John Snagge, as the more observant among you may already have noted, but for an event which only really provides entertainment when one of the boats sinks or when P G Wodehouse is writing about it, the commentator's sui generis phrase-making adds a maverick element that may have coaxed in one or two of the barely believable 4.4m people alleged to have stayed indoors on a glorious Saturday afternoon to watch the contest.

Everything else about the Boat Race was as expected; from a sponsor you almost certainly will never have heard of, to a hyphenated presenter, Mark Durden-Smith, who introduced the event somewhat optimistically: "Oxford or Cambridge; now you have to make a decision." Not really, Mark. For some of us, the outcome remains about as relevant as a tug-of-war contest between Keele and the University of East Anglia, and I write as someone who was at Oxford in the 70s.

Not a particularly distinguished stay, I confess, but it brought great joy to my father who could say grandly to his friends down the pub, "I must go now, my son is home from Oxford for the weekend," neglecting to mention that I was not at the University at all but a cub reporter on the Oxford Mail (eventually they let me cover the scouts, girl guides and Women's Institute as well). The Boat Race sponsor, by the way, Xchanging, describes itself as "a fast growing international pure play business processing company."

Bread heads, Peter, wandering through the wallets of the world. In the field of sponsorship, however, the Boat Race still lags some laps behind formula one, whose very existence seems to depend on flogging us stuff. Why else would the drivers' helmets carry so many endorsements that it is impossible to read them all without judicious use of the pause button? One of those on the headgear our own Lewis Hamilton donned for the Malaysian grand prix was for Vodafone, who backed it up with an expensive looking commercial full of children and spaceships: "When we are young we all have dreams of speed and excitement," intoned the voiceover, "Somehow these dreams never happen, but a dream can only become reality if you chase it and chase it and chase it. Vodafone - Make The Most Of Now."

It is rare I find myself screaming the very worst four-letter words at the television at 8am - even when PC Plum is being particularly obtuse in Balamory - but these highfalutin mobile phone ads will do it for me every time. How, I should like to know, is "I'm on the train, but I can pick up a bottle from the off-licence when I get back," in any way connected with childhood dreams or even making the most of now? Adverts, of course, are not meant to be taken literally and normally I would not even register the barefaced lies being hurled at me - even by the dimwits at BT Total Broadband, who after three months in my new home and countless Kafkaesque phone calls, have still not connected my wireless broadband - but maybe you notice the ads more during formula one because after the flurry of excitement at the start, the action - for motor racing agnostics - is rarely involving enough to divert you from the commercial clamour surrounding it. There was certainly nothing in the race to match, for sheer effrontery, the VW Golf advert, which uses the Platters' hit, The Great Pretender, to send up the kind of pretentious chap who is all about image - exactly the sort that you might find dreaming up adverts for motor cars.

Finally, if I have given the golf scant coverage it is because its climax came too late for inclusion in this column and also because, as a non-golfer and a compulsive channel switcher I always manage to find something more interesting to watch when follow the golf, often someone having their stomach stapled. I cannot think of anything happening in Augusta that could be more of a draw than that, unless it was Peter Alliss having his stomach stapled.